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UPDATED: Paramount's horror pic is off to a strong start despite bad weather in the Midwest and Northeast, although it will likely lose the weekend to "Frozen."

Marking the first nationwide release of 2014, Paramount's Latino-themed Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones topped the Friday box office with a pleasing $8.7 million for an expected weekend take of $19 million.

Like other films, the spin-off of the blockbuster Paranormal Activity franchise took a hit on the East Coast, where bad snow slowed theater traffic in major cities including New York City and Boston. Bitterly cold weather in the Midwest is also having an impact.

Costing $5 million to make, The Marked Ones hopes to launch its own franchise. Produced by Jason Blum and Oren Peli, the film stars Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz and Gabrielle Walsh. The pic received a C- CinemaScore, not entirely unusual for a horror film.

Written and directed by Christopher Landon, The Marked Ones explores the effects of demon possession and the cultural history of black magic rituals used to fight it.

On Saturday, Disney's holdover Frozen is poised to pull ahead of Marked Ones and ultimately win the weekend with an estimated $23 million-plus. Marked Ones has a strong shot at coming in No. 2 and beating holdover The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Frozen -- quickly approaching the $300 million mark domestically -- took in $6.8 million on Friday for a domestic total of $283.9 million. Desolation of Smaug came in No. 3 with $5.1 million for a North American total of $218.5 million.

Paramount's The Wolf of Wall Street and Sony's American Hustle rounded out the top five. From Martin Scorsese, Wolf narrowly beat David O. Russell's American Hustle with $4.3 million for an expected $14 million weekend, and pushing its domestic total to roughly $63 million.

American Hustle took in $4.1 million. The film is expected to earn in the $13 million-plus range for the weekend for a domestic total of nearly $90 million.